


Blind

by legendofthesevenstars



Series: Machina Trilogy [1]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Character Study, Cutscene Rewrite, Experimental, Gen, mentions of gore and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/pseuds/legendofthesevenstars
Summary: "Two voices, two minds have lived inside him since that day."Egil's inner conflict tears him apart. But he has not completely forgotten his former self.





	Blind

Machina have two hearts, an adaptation necessitated by poor circulation and the frailty of children. They have a core unit that keeps them running; should it cease functioning, they would die. Their sensitive skin is protected from the outside world by a metal exoskeleton. Egil, despite being physically healthy, thinks all three of these are failing. His armor is cracked; his hearts no longer beat; his core no longer keeps him warm. And it all started when Zanza crushed his hometown and his people underneath the Monado.

He has been falling apart, slowly, a prolonged and painful decay.

Two voices, two minds have lived inside him since that day. One for each heart. _One heart is larger than the other_ , he remembers from a distant biology lesson, _one may become quite shriveled and pathetic as we age, but it is still necessary for our proper function_. In much the same way, one voice is far louder. It reminds him of the past every day, torturing him with images of his brethren screaming in agony, meeting their early end. Reminds him of Arglas taken over, reduced to a shell, Zanza’s blue-eyed hatred replacing the red eyes into which Egil would never look again. Specters haunt him, sounds never leave his ears. The blood that was pooled on the ground now stains his hands.

Egil never wanted to become a killer. It was not anything he could possibly conceive of doing, ever, in his life. But his hardened bitter heart fuels him with pure rage and continues him down his genocidal path. Looking over mangled bodies through the built-in cameras in Mechon, he wonders if there is some sort of latent proclivity he has always had toward killing that has only now been awakened by the hurt he experienced. But who would expect the man who gasped at flowers opening in the moonlight to commit mass slaughter millennia later?

His second voice, his second heart, holds his memories from before the war, of someone who was kind, emotional, empathetic. It is faint now, almost totally engulfed by anger. But he used to be gentle, loving: everyone admired him. Weak, is what he would call that version of himself now. Why should anyone care so much about someone who knew so little?

Weak: that is what he is, depleted and tired from the fight he has carried on almost single-handedly for thousands of years. His near vision has begun to fade, even spot a little. When he’s stressed or exhausted, it blurs even more. Linada attributes it to thinning retinas; Vanea calls it hereditary; he knows it’s caused by having seen too much. His back aches; he gets feverish if he overexerts himself. He gets careless, too: his armor wears out, gathering rust when he forgets to polish it. Even when he exerts his physical and mental power over the misfits from Bionis, his arm aches after picking up the Homs by his face, and from the deep gash the Monado left in his flesh. Weak, and falling apart. Decaying.

—

When Meyneth speaks, the first he has heard her in more than three thousand years, she speaks with two voices.

“Meyneth, Vanea, and Miqol loved you. All of your people loved you. They just wanted you to come back, Egil. It’s all so clear now. To both of us!”

Egil turns Yaldabaoth’s back to her. What meaning do her words hold anymore, what weight can they carry when the fate of all Machina is so bleak? Meyneth’s soul was inside him, once; she is excellent at convincing anyone to see it her way, his bitter heart says, but as he turns around and points Yaldabaoth’s finger at her to denounce her as a traitor, his finger trembles, his pulses quicken, his head spins.

_You were once the man who held, cradled someone’s hand in your own,_ he hears underneath her words. _You loved your people, your sister, your father, me. You loved the beings of Bionis._

No, they are not only her words. His other heart, that second voice, speaks to him now. _In your mind’s eye you still see the titan you traveled and fell in love with. Even as you try to wipe out every last trace within your heart that Bionis ever meant anything to you._

His bitter heart cracks. His compassionate heart beats.

—

Inside the Mechonis, Egil obsesses over the wound the Homs gave him. Perhaps because the blood he staunched is proof that he is still a Machina and still very much alive. Shulk was not the only Homs to wound him: the girl’s—and Meyneth’s—words still resound within his mind. But if he is to do this, why would he back down now? It is his only chance to destroy Zanza.

Faced with Shulk’s blade, his vision blurs again. He never feared death and had no reason to, except that he is so close to achieving his goal. Still, it’s easily blamed on the ether distortion caused by the Monado. The pale blonde hair and the dreaded blue eyes blend into an incarnation of Zanza before him, and he swears he glimpses the halo that circles the god’s head.

But then Shulk, who had mere seconds ago been possessed by a powerful rage as violent and raw as his, suddenly withdraws the Monado and sits down next to Egil.

“Why won’t you do it?” Why does Egil feel such excitement that Shulk could have ended it prematurely, especially when he was so close to achieving his goal of destroying Zanza?

“There’s no reason. We share the same pain.”

_How presumptuous_ , is Egil’s first reaction. How could he possibly understand the pain of losing everything—his home, his people, everything he loves?

“You should kill me now. I would advise it, if you care so much about your pathetic existence.”

“No. I won’t kill you, because I think there’s a chance we could set aside our differences. I’ve lost ones I loved because of what you did. You lost ones you loved because of what Zanza did. And because of that we sought revenge—never thinking about the other side, only about ourselves. Don’t we have that in common?”

Egil is silent for a moment. The boy’s words ring true, perhaps truer than Meyneth’s. Strange how a Homs boy he’d never met understood him nearly as well, perhaps better than she did. He looks over at Shulk. _You have always hated blue eyes_ , his bitter heart says, conjuring images of Zanza laughing madly, but, meeting the boy’s stare, sees an unexpected tenderness, and it compels him to tell the truth about the Monado.

“I presume you are aware that Mechonis and Bionis used to coexist in peace.”

Shulk nods.

“I loved the Bionis, just as much as I loved my home, the Mechonis. I was always traveling the Bionis with a treasured friend of mine. But when I was not there, he stumbled upon the Monado, was taken over by it, and directed the Bionis’ blade at Mechonis.”

“Was that friend Zanza?”

Egil shakes his head slowly. “Zanza is not the name of my friend. Zanza is the name of the individual who took away everything dearest to my heart. The friend’s name was Arglas, but he is no more.”

Shulk hangs his head. “Egil, I’m so sorry. Mumkhar—I mean, Metal Face, he—”

“Are you forgetting who gave Metal Face those orders? The point was to eradicate Zanza, just as Lady Meyneth wished.” He looks to the girl for a moment, and she smiles. The kindness surprises him, but then, he supposes, she had always been forgiving. Or is this merely the nature of Homs? That they are so quick to forgive his transgressions against them?

“I’m so sorry.” Shulk frowns. “I can’t imagine that kind of pain, having to kill someone you care so much about. Your father, he asked us to kill you, and…” Shulk shakes his head. “That’s enough,” he says with a sudden burst of positive energy. “What was your favorite place on Bionis?”

Egil sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. Beyond the bodies of the dead, he sees the white flowers blossoming in the night, shooting stars descending from the sky, Nopon sewing a patchwork quilt, Homs bickering at markets, High Entia in costume at the opera. Arglas’ voice and a kind smile.

_There’s nothing like this on Mechonis,_ he said over and over again. _Nothing quite like this._

“Do the trees still glow blue and violet at night on the Bionis’ back?”

Shulk nods. “They do.” He stands up, brushing off his armor, and extends his hand to Egil. “We would be glad to show you if you come with us.”

Egil is shocked by Shulk’s compassion. But he knows that much of his anger against the Bionis is due to isolation, never having tried to reach out before. This is his choice: will he die bitterly, protecting the Mechonis and Lady Meyneth against the Bionis, or will he, changed by Shulk’s empathy, join the Homs and return to the Bionis? The choice seems clear—obvious, even. It’s time to move on.

He begins to sit up, and just as he is about to meet Shulk’s hand, a gunshot echoes in the core of the Mechonis.

—

Blood drips onto the hand Shulk had, only seconds ago, extended to him. He falls; Egil catches him, cradles his limp body and lets it gently down to the ground. Moments ago, he might have been thankful. A day ago, the sight of a Homs corpse would not have phased him. Now, he is shaken to see that the boy is dead, not by his hand but in his hand. Peace and unity: are they only ideals about which his younger, more compassionate self liked to fantasize? As long as Zanza exists, as long as the Monado exists, can there ever be peace? Should he have dared to even consider the possibility in the first place? Still, even if the boy is dead, the dream cannot die. The last he can do to show Shulk he really cares about the dream is to try to make it happen by killing Zanza.

—

Exhausted and weak, Egil, pushed to the limits of his power by Zanza and the Monado, lies on his back and watches the girl—no, Meyneth, fight him. When he first fought Zanza, Meyneth did all the work, but now he has challenged a god, alone. Even if he is too weak to continue fighting back, this is amazing, feeling so powerless like this. His functional breakdown is strangely liberating.

When she bursts out of the chest of the Homs girl, the collective gasp resounds in his ears, the girl calling _Meyneth_ just as loudly as he feels it in his own heart. _Meyneth_.

“This world belongs to all of you,” she says, then, looking down at him, “Create a world with no need for gods.”

Egil used to believe in her idealism, before he had any conception of Zanza or of evil. When the only things that were certain were his home, Lady Meyneth, and death. The very same death he will now face to save the only ones who can absolve the world of its eternal tragedy. He is not powerless: he is not completely finished. He has not completely abandoned ideals and compassion. Shulk has proven that to him. And so he has a story to help them end.


End file.
